Battlestar Galactica 11 - The Nightmare Machine

by Glen A. Larson

  No, he couldn't have Starbuck kill him. He wanted to die, yes, but not with the deed performed by a friend, no matter how loony the friend was at the moment.

  Apollo, moving slowly in order to pinpoint the sounds that were echoing all around him, was aware that they seemed to be getting closer all the time. Footsteps ahead of him, at ground level, made him set himself, his gun ready but not pointed. Sheba rounded a corner and came toward him.

  "They're up there, Apollo," she said. "Greenbean and Starbuck. I've been tracking them. Starbuck's trying to kill Greenbean. Bojay and Boomer're up there, too. I've been watching for somebody to take a ladder down."

  "Maybe we should go up."

  "If you say so. I just passed a ladder. Over here."

  When they had climbed up to the walkway, they heard the clunking sound of steps heading their way.

  Boomer caught up with Starbuck while he was stopped to take aim again at Greenbean. He leaped at Starbuck and grabbed him around the shoulders. They grappled furiously, Boomer maintaining his bear hug tightly. Then Starbuck pushed backward roughly, shoving Boomer against the railing. Boomer's grip loosened enough for Starbuck to ram his elbow into Boomer's stomach. It was not a hard blow, but its unexpectedness knocked the breath out of Boomer and broke his grip on Starbuck. Starbuck hit him hard on the side of the head with his pistol and rushed off, without looking back to check damage.

  Bojay ran up to Boomer, who was swaying a bit and holding onto his head where Starbuck had clubbed him.

  "You all right, buddy?" Bojay asked.

  "Except for seeing triple, fine. Get him."

  Bojay tore off down the walkway. Boomer, watching him go, pushed himself away from the railing and loped after him. As his head cleared, he accelerated to a fast sprint and was soon running just behind Bojay.

  Greenbean couldn't run any more. He stopped and stood in the middle of the walkway, searching the darkness for his pursuers. The old man dropped back and grabbed his arm.

  "Don't stop now, sonny. We got some space 'tween us and them. Look, I know a place they'll never find us. C'mon!"

  "No!"

  The fury of Greenbean's response made the old man release his grip on the young man's upper arm.

  "No? You out of your head?"

  "I'm not running away from them. I want to die. Starbuck's going to kill me. I didn't want it to be him, but so be it. Better this way."

  The misery inside him was now so overwhelming Greenbean couldn't think straight. In his mind he was getting jumbled pictures—of his betrayal, of the time since, of Baltar and Lucifer. He wanted to make them stop spinning around in his head.

  There were now steps coming toward them from both sides. Greenbean turned his head in one direction and saw Apollo in the distance, with Sheba just behind him. From the other way came Starbuck, waving his pistol crazily in front of him.

  "Look, old-timer, we're trapped anyway."

  The old man took a couple of steps toward Apollo and hollered:

  "What's this all about? You can see this kiddo wouldn't hurt a Dagon nightcrawler."

  "Sir," Apollo shouted back, "I don't know who you are, but this is military business. The ensign has been summoned to the commanding officer. He has to—"

  "Don't be officious with me, young man. I don't care about your commanding officers! I'm an engineer. We take care of ourselves and our own without the interference of commanding officers."

  "He's not your own," Starbuck yelled. "He's a dirty traitor. Let me—"

  The old man casually interjected his body between Greenbean and Starbuck, saying:

  "You'll have to kill me first."

  "I don't want to kill you, old man," Starbuck said.

  "You're not going to kill anyone, Starbuck," Apollo barked.

  "Crouch a little bit, son," the old man whispered to Greenbean. "You're too tall a drink o' water."

  Boomer and Bojay, running up, stopped a few meters away from Starbuck.

  "What's got into him?" Bojay muttered.

  "I don't know," Boomer said, ruefully. "We've got to jump him before he gets another clear shot at Greenbean. I'll hit him highside, you grab him low."

  "Right."

  It appeared as if Starbuck hadn't been aware of their arrival. However, just before they were about to spring at him, he whirled around and held his gun on them. His eyes were deranged, and the twisted smile on his face alarmed them.

  "You're not going to shoot us, Starbuck," Boomer said quietly.

  "Not unless I have to."

  And those eyes, and that smile, told them he just might. He turned his back on them and started walking toward Greenbean and the old man.

  "What's he doing now?" Sheba asked Apollo.

  "I don't know, but we better get involved in it."

  "Greenbean," Starbuck shouted, "how could you turn on us all, you—"

  "I—I didn't know what I was doing. Starbuck, they get into your brain and turn it into jelly. They—"

  "I don't want to hear about it. I'm just going to slice your head off and toss it out the nearest chute."

  "I don't care. It's all—"

  "What are you guys having," the old man said, "a tea party conversation? He's trying to kill you, kiddo."

  "I said, I don't care."

  "Well, I do."

  The old man stepped toward Starbuck.

  "Get out of the way, old-timer," Starbuck warned.

  "NO!"

  The old man's leap at Starbuck startled everyone on the walkway, especially Starbuck. It was an amazingly agile and graceful leap, his arms outspread, the rags of his moldy garment flapping. He made contact with Starbuck savagely, managing to strike his jaw and send him reeling backward. Starbuck fell to the floor of the walkway. Bojay stepped forward to help the old man, but Starbuck gestured him backward with his pistol. The old man jumped on top of Starbuck, but he was light and fragile, and Starbuck was able to fling him off. Starbuck sprang to his feet rapidly and pushed the old man aside. The old man made a futile attempt to leap again on Starbuck, this time attacking him from the rear. He hung on Starbuck's back weakly, and then fell. He hit his head against the railing and passed out.

  Boomer went to the old man's side as Starbuck, his eyes gleaming with hatred, edged toward Greenbean. Apollo and Sheba approached the ensign from the other side.

  "Greenbean," Apollo called, "come here. To us."

  "No, Apollo," Starbuck said grimly, "he's mine."

  "Greenbean . . ." said Apollo.

  Greenbean turned toward Apollo and said in a shaky voice:

  "I'm not coming, Apollo. I want to die."

  "And you're going to," Starbuck said. He lifted his pistol to aim it.

  "Stop him, Apollo," Sheba shouted.

  "Only one thing I can do," Apollo said.

  He raised his own pistol. Starbuck and he squared off, facing each other, the slumping Greenbean in between them, watching them stiffly, offhandedly.

  "You do what you want, Apollo," Starbuck said softly, "I've made my choice."

  Apollo noticed Boomer creeping up behind Starbuck. One of Boomer's special abilities was the ability to move soundlessly.

  "Starbuck, listen to me," Apollo said, to gain time for Boomer.

  "I'm done with listening," Starbuck said.

  Boomer, in a lightning move, pulled himself onto the railing so that he towered above Starbuck, who still hadn't sensed his approach. As Starbuck fired at Greenbean, Boomer leaped onto his back and deflected his aim just enough so that the shot went astray. Planting his feet on the walkway, Boomer pulled Starbuck sideways. That gave Apollo the chance he needed. Aiming quickly and carefully, he shot. Starbuck's pistol sailed out of his hand and went clattering to the walkway floor. The old man, who had come to just before, picked it up and threw it over his shoulder off the walkway.

  "Apollo," Starbuck yelled.

  "That's it, Starbuck," Apollo said. "Enough."

  Starbuck screamed a long drawn-out no, wriggled out of Boomer's grasp, a
nd lunged at Greenbean. Before anyone could intervene, he had pushed Greenbean against the railing. Putting his arm beneath Greenbean's legs, he tried to flip him over the railing, intending to send him to his death below, onto the floor of the devil's pit. At first Greenbean didn't resist, but then he realized he couldn't let Starbuck kill him like this. He might want to die, he thought, but not this way, not as Starbuck's revenge.

  Greenbean kicked out at Starbuck, catching him a solid blow in the side. Starbuck lost his leverage, and Greenbean slid off the railing. For a moment the two wrestled ineffectively against the railing, then Starbuck got a grip on Greenbean's neck and began to squeeze hard. Greenbean nearly blacked out immediately, so fierce was his adversary's hold. Fortunately for him, Boomer dived at Starbuck and weakened his grip by pulling at his left arm, then Apollo hit his other arm with a swift downward stroke that caused Starbuck to disengage. Bojay joined them to hold the violently squirming Starbuck back.

  "Okay now," Apollo said. "Let's get some of this straightened out. How about we go see Colonel Tigh, Greenbean?"

  Greenbean knew the last thing he wanted right now was to stand before the stern gaze of the colonel.

  "Just leave me alone, all of you," he said.

  "No," said Cassiopeia, who had climbed a ladder and reached the walkway level just in time to see Apollo and Boomer stop Starbuck from murdering Greenbean. "Don't let him get away with that. He'll try to kill himself."

  Greenbean turned to Cassiopeia and said angrily:

  "What do you care?"

  Cassiopeia took a step toward him, and, her eyes filled with fury, said:

  "I care! Damn it, I care! We all do, you bloody fool! We'll risk our own lives for you."

  "She's right," Boomer said. "We need you back in the squadron."

  "I don't need the—" Starbuck muttered.

  "Shut up, Starbuck," Boomer said. "Listen to us, Greeny."

  "Right," Apollo said. "Get it through your head we're not going to let you do anything to yourself."

  "Try and stop me," Greenbean said ominously, then leapt toward the railing, grabbing it with the intention of jumping over it. Sheba dived at him and, in a graceful tackle, wrapped her arms around his legs to keep him on the walkway. The others joined in and subdued Greenbean. He collapsed in their arms, bawling.

  "You don't understand," he said desolately. "You don't understand. It's awful."

  Apollo knelt next to him and said gently:

  "What don't we understand, Greenbean?"

  "What I've done. I betrayed you all. Everybody. The whole ship."

  There was a moment of quiet while Greenbean's listeners exchanged glances, all except Starbuck, who stared smugly into the distance.

  "See, guys?" Starbuck said. "I told you, didn't I?"

  "Keep your trap shut, Starbuck," Apollo said. "I don't want to hear another word from you. Okay, Greeny, tell us."

  "But it's awful, it's—"

  "Let us judge that. Talk."

  Greenbean couldn't say anything at first. When he did speak, it was in a quiet, shattered voice.

  "The . . . memories, they come back. I didn't know. Didn't know what I'd done, not until now. But I remember . . . remember everything now . . ."

  He told them about his capture and transportation to Baltar's base-star. He described in harrowing detail the tortures the Cylons had put him through. The others couldn't look Greenbean in the eye as he spoke of the pain he'd felt. He told them of how his brain had turned to jelly, how his insides had collapsed inward, how he'd tried to measure prolonged pain to get his mind off it. He told them of the psychological tortures, of how he was made to feel he had been a total flop as a pilot, warrior, friend, human being. He told them how he had been injected with drugs that distorted his reasoning, that ruined his senses of logic and morality. He told them how he tried to fight all the tortures, how he struggled in his cell to train himself to resist the next session's pain. He told them of how he no longer had been able to face another session, of how he'd finally cracked and given his Cylon interrogators all the information they wanted to know. The Galactica's coordinates, details about personnel and firepower, strategies, everything he knew that he thought they would like to hear.

  "Apollo," he said, "that last time, I tried not to tell them. I struggled against it. I knew others are captured and don't tell—"

  "And don't usually come back either," Apollo said.

  "But I couldn't . . . couldn't fight it. Suddenly I had to tell them all. Everything. I wanted to tell them. I felt happy for telling them, relieved. It wasn't till later, back in my cell, that it hit me what I'd done. Not till later. See, I've got to die now, got to—"

  "No," Apollo said, in a kind voice. "No, Greenbean, no."

  "But I—"

  "You cracked. Could happen to any one of us."

  "Apollo," Starbuck cried angrily, "what are you saying? What he did, it's treason!"

  Apollo struggled to control his temper as he replied to Starbuck:

  "You know the commander's position on information obtained by the Cylons through torture. He says the informant has already been punished enough, he wants no vengeance."

  "Fancy-sounding words, Apollo. But we might be killed because of what he told the Cylons."

  "Then we'll be killed. But now we know the danger, we know what they know. That just might be to our advantage. Tell us more of what you recall, Greenbean."

  "But I need to be punished. I need to die."

  "Don't sweat the punishment. I'll see you're not let off easy. But we need to know more. You have to tell me all you remember."

  In muddled fashion he related what he could remember of his interviews with Baltar. There was something there he should recall, he knew, but it wouldn't come back to him.

  "And then they let me go. And I woke up in my viper and didn't remember a thing. They'd taken all the memories of my time on that ship out of my head."

  "A mind-wipe," Apollo said.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Keep talking."

  "I came back here and everything started going haywire. And I know it's my fault. I shouldn't have come back. I did it. I did all of it. It's my fault."

  "Did what? What is it you've done?"

  "I . . . I don't remember. Something Baltar did to me. His assistant, the red-eyed one, did to me."

  "What did they do?"

  "I can't remember."

  "TRY! Greenbean, try."

  Greenbean squirmed physically as he struggled to recall the incidents on Baltar's base-star. The more he struggled, the more it became clear. Suddenly the memory of sitting in the chair and being emotionally manipulated returned to him.

  "They spoke in front of me like I couldn't hear. I guess they figured the mind-wipe'd take it away anyway."

  "But what was it they were saying?"

  "I can never quite focus on it. I can almost hear them."

  "Concentrate, Greeny," Cassiopeia said, softly and tenderly.

  He shut his eyes, saw Baltar, Lucifer. Gradually, like a commcircuit receiver being slowly tuned louder, their words became clear.

  "Something about guilt. Sending me back to spread guilt through the ship. After you found me, all I had to be was on the ship and everything'd happen automatically."

  "What would happen?" Apollo asked.

  "I don't know. Don't understand. The stuff'd go out from me in some way."

  "Stuff? What do you mean by stuff?"

  "I don't—the guilt! It was the guilt. I'd spread the guilt."

  "How?" Starbuck said sarcastically. "With the charm of your charmless personality?"

  "Starbuck!" Apollo said, threateningly.

  "I know, I know. My mouth is sewn shut."

  Apollo prodded Greenbean to talk again.

  "I really don't—I'd—wait, I remember, it was this stupid-looking machine. It looked like a pile of junk. They sat me by it, and I felt whatever they wanted me to feel. I was laughing. Crying. I felt afraid. Then content. Just one emot
ion right after the other, whatever they wanted. The red-eye'd just flip a toggle."

  Apollo continued his interrogation to prod Greenbean's memory. The details came out slowly. Greenbean described the manipulations, then he remembered them referring to the pile of junk as a guilt device, then he recalled them saying they could use Greenbean to transmit the emotion back to the Galactica.

  "Use you?" Apollo asked. "How did they do that?"

  "I don't know. They . . . they put it on me some way. Planted it. Somehow."

  Apollo clasped Greenbean's shoulders and said, his voice intense:

  "This is important, Greenbean. They planted it on you. How? Is it on your skin or inside your body?"

  "No, no, I don't think so."

  "In your viper?"

  "No . . . It's no use, Apollo, I can't—"

  "You're doing fine. Keep trying."

  Greenbean scowled, forcing the memory to come.

  "They . . . they said I'd carry it to the Galactica. Some way. It'd be . . . it'd be . . ."

  He pictured Baltar talking in that sneering self-important way. The words were faint, blocked by the prisoner Greenbean's hazy mind, but if he concentrated he could hear. He concentrated.

  "My clothes," he said. "My clothes, they put something in my uniform."

  "What?" Apollo asked. "Take your time, think."

  "They're . . . I can't . . . they're . . . something. Some kind of . . . they called them relays. Red eye said relays. That's it. There are relays in my clothing. Inside buttons, woven into threads, all over it."

  "But your clothes were checked when you got back."

  "Not . . . well enough. The odd one, Red eye, he said he created circuitry so small it'd be virtually undetectable. Not 'less you were lookin' for it."

  Greenbean sounded relieved, and his voice became more energetic.